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On July 4th, 2017, we flew NSL-57 for the Girl Scouts. They were in the midst of a week long day camp that focused on space. The payload was loaded with souvenir "swaps" for each of the scouts. This was a re-flight of much of NSL-56. The payload included:
Mobius Mini Action Camera
AP510 APRS tracker
TK102B GSM backup tracker
Outside Hung Compact Rain-Activated Pull-down
Directed Arboreal Recovery Node with Integrated Tether
and the Pi Zero with camera and LoRa module
with a 92cm chute and a 600g H2 balloon.
Janell, Tanner, and Paul L. prepped for launch, and a group of scouts released it.
View from the on-board camera just before launch
Three of the older scouts joined in on the chase. The projected flight path had it traveling back and forth across southern Wake County. So we didn't have to travel far to recover.
Instructions being given to the chase team
Passing up through the clouds
A view from 86,000 feet
A similar image from the on-board Pi zero camera
Views of storm clouds growing in the distance
The flight ascended to 26284m (86,233 feet) before the balloon failed. This was below the predicted altitude. The balloon burst on video was very subdued. Paul suspects that the balloon was "cooked" by the hot sun while it lay out on the dark pad just before filling. Note the brown stripes on the balloon in the first photo above. These were not visible as the balloon was being unpackaged, but were shockingly visible once fill began.
Ice particles glinting during descent though the upper cloud layer
Descending
The descent was perfect. No sign of fowling of the parachute by the balloon pieces. It landed gently near a golf course and the chase crew arrived two minutes later.
A perfect landing !
Chase crew seen from the payload moments after landing
Successful recovery
The story of the flight told by thumbnails from the Raspberry Pi
Flight visualization
Ascent and descent rates look pretty normal.
The payload stayed very warm with all of that solar heating.
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